Habeas Corpus

CARRY ON ROMPING: HADIT PERFORMS HABEAS CORPUS

They say that if you remember the 1960s, you weren’t there! In Habeas Corpus, Alan Bennett takes us back to an era of Mondrian-print mini-dresses, white boots, Bakelite phones and ‘the permissive society’.

The play focuses on womanising GP, Arthur Wicksteed (played with panache by Paul Archer), and his formidable wife, Muriel (Sheree Smallwood on good form). Muriel has the hots for the vertically challenged, insufferably arrogant Sir Percy Shorter (Nick Williams). The Wicksteeds have a spotty, hypochondriac son, Dennis (Martin Chapman). Step into the mix: posh, pregnant Felicity Rumpers (played with delicious dreaminess by Jenni Argent), who needs to marry someone to escape the wrath of her mother, Lady Rumpers (Judith Coates in Lady Bracknell mode). Felicity fixates on Dennis who, though terminally ill, is not averse to a spot of ‘rumper-tumpty’.

Wicksteed’s sister, Connie, is tired of her ironing board chest and orders a pair of mammoth mammaries by mail. These transform her from sad spinster to sex bomb --a transition well effected by Fiona Johnston. Enter Mr Shanks, who comes to check on his product, and he has his hands full in no time (Tim Smallwood: a study in blinking bewilderment).

Most of the characters seem determined to get their rocks off, even the aptly named Canon Throbbing (Jon Haddock conveying a sort of bonkers zeal). Commenting on the mayhem in cutting couplets is Mrs Swabb, cleaner, ‘behaviourist and busy-body’. In Hilda Ogden get-up, Pat Gillatt gave a strong performance with even more facial expressions than Nadiya from Bake-Off. In the middle of all the goings-on, Mr Purdue, Wicksteed’s depressive patient, is ineptly trying to kill himself -- for example, attempting to gas himself in an electric oven or taking an overdose (of laxatives). Tony Evans got his teeth into this part, and was a total hoot.

Habeas Corpus includes many ingredients of farce: misunderstandings, mistakes (or should that be boobs?), partner swapping, crazy revelations (Lady Rumpers has previously had a ‘mad magenta moment’ with Sir Percy) and dropped trousers. It depends on split-second timing, sharp delivery of one-liners, and quick-fire pace. It is to the company’s credit that on the whole they kept up momentum. I liked the stripped-down set, and there was some inventive staging.

Ultimately, Bennett uses a frothy genre to explore human frailty, the tyranny of the flesh and the ever-presence of death … or, to give Mrs Swabb the last word: ‘the world is just an abattoir/ for our rotting lumps of meat.’

Margaret Coupe